A Stryke To The Heart
by Truest Tears
Summary: While on a trip through Canada Wolverine finds one of Stryker's deserted bases, and inside a young girl who is somehow connected with Stryker, and with himself.Chapter 2 up.
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: I do not in any way own the X-men. The characters that you do not recognise are mine, please don't steal them.

Prologue

Wolverine was bored with the long trip that was taking him into the wild, open, snowy roads of Canada. Being trained as a martial artist, and being very successful in holding a five-hour long session of meditation without any difficulties, he was surprised that the drive would bore him.

But he was getting increasingly restless the further he went. It was like an invisible force was sitting at the back of his mind, teasing, testing; prying…He pulled the truck to a halt and got out, slamming the door behind him. Immediately, his animal senses were on alert as he sensed that there was something wrong about the place. There was a mixture of scents playing in the air. They were at least two days old, but still there. The strong, icy wind hadn't managed to misplace them yet, like someone had been residing close by for some time.

Sniffing the air, he began to walk cautiously forward, tracing the scent until it stopped at the base of a very large oak. The tree had been protecting the ground at its base from getting snowed over, and his enhanced vision made out a sort of handle that stuck out of the ground.

Crouching down, he pulled at it, and was almost surprised when it immediately opened to reveal a trapdoor. Wary of a trap, he popped a claw before lowering himself down.

He was standing in a gloomy, musty tunnel. It was almost completely dark except for the lighted screen of a computer that stood a little way down.

This was definitely a trap. Besides being a very obvious one.

But there was nobody around, except for the lingering of scents, charred wood and rusty iron. He couldn't sense anyone, not even the odd guard, or an animal, nothing.

Advancing slowly, and trusting his enhanced senses to warn him of any danger, he made his way up to the computer. It was then that a particular, terrifying scent reached him. It was the smell of a thousand nightmares, of the past that eluded him, of the memories that he had been chasing for the past years since he had been released, naked, vulnerable and raving mad from the labs of his worst enemy.

_Stryker._

Quickly he scanned the computer for any scraps of information. Its complete database had been wiped clean. There was nothing.

He sighed warily. He had been this close to finding the past that haunted him, maybe a few answers, and all he got was another question. He turned away from the computer and kept on walking down the underground establishment.

It was in the same style that most of Strykers' labs were, except it had been hastily deserted, he could see. There were a few bolts on the floor, a little bit of sawdust, but only three basic machines he could quite get the meaning of and an empty control room with another wiped computer.

Exasperated, he turned to leave, when a sound reached his ears.

It sounded like a small, distressed whimper, and he began searching for it frantically. Up a flight of stairs leading down yet another dark hall, and then a dim electric light lit up a cell, and a bed made up of a sheet and an old blanket, and also a bowl of food, untouched, and a pitcher of water.

And there, crouched into a ball in the corner, as far away from the light as it could get was a single, rag-clad figure.

It was a young girl, and she was all bones.

She made no move to resist as he turned her over to pick her up, his hand where it supported her back could feel her scrawny spine, and her face was gaunt and bony, high cheekbones protruding, as though demanding to be acknowledged as her main feature.

It was strange, seeing as she had a good, un-poisoned bowl of food on the rickety table next to her bed, and yet she hadn't eaten any of it.

But the weirdest thing about her was that she didn't have a scent. Not really.

Everyone had their own particular scent, beneath sweat, and dirt, and everything else, they had their trademark scent, which Wolverine had learnt to detect, but the problem with her was that she didn't have one.

Bemused, he sniffed her over some more, then gave up and decided that the best thing he could do was get her into the truck and back to Westchester, where Chuck could take care of her.

She had slept all the way, curled up in a corner at the back of the truck, nestled up in a large old blanket.

There was such an air of abandoned despair radiating from her that he was finding it difficult to concentrate on the road. Fortunately he had almost reached Westchester, with a full day and night of driving without a break he was dog-tired, but his healing factor was taking care of most of it. The rest could only be fixed by a hot shower and a nice, warm, comfortable bed.

Back at Westchester

"It's Logan!" exclaimed Rogue, running down the hall towards the door. She pushed it open with an impatient yank and skipped outside to where Wolverine had come out of his battered truck to stretch his legs in the warm, late afternoon sunshine.

Rogue smiled brilliantly and stepped forward to hug him, a lock of white hair falling onto her forehead.

Logan tucked it behind one of her ears fondly, realizing that he'd missed her quite a bit on his trip.

"Bring me anything?" grinned Rogue, and he saw that she was kidding, but still a tinge hopeful.

"No, darlin', but I found a mutant that Chuck might take a liking to. A very desperate one, by the looks of her. Might need some help before she can go anywhere…"

Saying so he had walked around to the back of the truck and opened up the doors, beckoning Jean forward to look at the bundle huddled against the floor.

"She seems so lost!" exclaimed Jean, longing to reach out and comfort the helpless being, but Logan warned her away.

"She's as cunning, and as dangerous, as a snake. Remember that," then his expression had changed and he had lifted the girl out, and carried her inside carefully.

Rogue frowned. "There goes tha' snake-charmer, then."

"Not jealous, are you?" asked Jean politely, then shook her head. "She's only a child. You know Logan and his fatherly feelings."

"She's not that young," said Rogue. "She's severely undernourished, tha's all."

Jean raised an eyebrow, and then turned towards the house.

"I wouldn't worry about her, if I was you. I pose more of a threat than that child. Now come inside, perhaps you can help. If there's anything that girl needs, besides a bath, it's a friend."

Rogue frowned, and then sighed. As usual, Jean was right.

"Fine—I'll race you to the door—"she barely finished before she sprinted forward.

Jean laughed, then quickly kicked up her heels and joined in the fun of chasing the younger mutant.

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As this is my first fan-fiction I would heartily welcome some feedback. Please tell me if I should continue this story.

Thanks.

-Truest Tears-


	2. Discovering Stryke

Disclaimer: I don't own the X-me. 'Nuff said. The characters that you don't recognise are mine, hands off!

Chapter 1:

Discovering Stryke

"_Life is like sleeping…except I don't have to dream. I can create anything that I can imagine, and I created you. You are different from him. I didn't make the same mistake twice. I tamed you."_

"Logan, she's awake," said Jean Grey. She set a cup of steaming coffee in front of the man often known as Wolverine and sat down beside him at the kitchen table.

"According to Hank's report she has suffered from a cruel case of neglect and undernourishment, and there are signs of abuse. But he discovered something more interesting."

Logan looked up from where he had gulped the coffee down and gave her a questioning glance.

"What's that?"

"She has almost your exact adamantium skeleton, except…more refined."

Jean frowned.

"It's as though Stryker wanted to make a copy of you, but this time he didn't make the same errors."

Logan frowned in deep thought.

"She doesn't have a scent, so I can't detect her, and she's smaller, more unnoticeable," he put the now empty cup down and got up. "I'm going to see her."

Jean's prescribed bath had done wonders for her, he noticed.

Her brownish hair had been made into a small braid that coiled over her neck, and touched one of her shoulders.

It was warm inside the mansion and she was dressed in cotton leggings and a simple, sleeveless top with an embroidered design around the waist.

She turned quickly and he could see that her eyes were peculiarly slanted and light blue in color.

He could sense her fear, but also her loneliness, her feeling of having been abandoned.

"What happened to ya, bub?" he questioned carefully, watching as her eyes widened.

She hissed suddenly, then leaped forward, ten claws erupting from her thin hands, headed directly for his throat.

He jumped to the side and she hit the wall, collapsing when she landed on the floor, the claws immediately retracting.

Near starvation had weakened her, he noticed.

If properly fed and trained, she would be very dangerous.

He had known, from the minute he picked her up, that she was more than her simple, neglected exterior showed her to be…

Stryker had made her, forming her as he had formed Wolverine not so long ago, taking a normal mutant and making extreme alterations until there was nothing of the old self left, only a despaired madness, and a feral attitude.

He saw her eyes glint before her anger faded and was replaced almost immediately by her depression.

She curled up into a ball and closed her eyes, laying there until he picked her up and carried her to her bedroom.

"What's your name?" he asked, tucking her into the bed.

She had immediately turned away from him, evidently ashamed of her failed attack.

In response, she lifted one of her legs from under the covers and showed him her ankle.

Securely fastened around her ankle was a slim chain, and on it a dog-tag that read

75-42

Stryke

1259 7458

It was some kind of code, he realized, turning the tag around. On the other side it said, simply

Daughter

A.N: A tiny chapter, I know. Anyway, let me make it clear that this is probably completely different from the movie and the comics, as I don't really read comics and I didn't much like the time-line of the movie.

Just to make it clear, Logan has all his adamantium, Rogue hasn't absorbed Carol Danvers, Jean Grey isn't Phoenix, Hank is Hank and Gambit is going to make an appearance later on.

Magneto never used Rogue to try to erase all humanity, her white stripes are part of her mutation, she doesn't have a little lovey-dovey thing with Bobby and Pyro never joined Magneto's gang

Thanks a lot to giveGodtheglory for his/her review. I took the scene from X-men: The Movie where Wolvie is driving in his truck with Rogue to inspire the lines of saying that Canada was snowy. Anyway, it looked like he was driving through Canada there, though I really wouldn't know.

I know that some parts of the story really didn't fit, but they will either be explained later on or merely left as "first-fan-fiction hiccups." Thanks a lot for the time you took to review.

I promise this story is going to take some more interesting turns and in my free time I will be writing a lot more.

-Truest Tears-


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